Jesse Hedrick launches Guided to widen access to college and career planning
The Guided platform brings all three of Hedrick's businesses under one roof, expanding opportunities to families who couldn’t afford his services before.
Jesse Hedrick has spent more than 15 years helping high school students raise their ACT and SAT scores to land spots at their dream schools.
Demand has never been an issue for Hedrick’s businesses, Testing Solutions and Collegiate Blueprint Consulting. The self-identified issue is that the whole operation depends on his availability to sit across from a student or a family, and though Hedrick has many skills, even he can’t be in two places at once.
Hedrick said the limited supply and high demand make his one-on-one rates too expensive for many families.
And over the past couple of years, that fact has weighed heavily on him.
Becoming one of the top standardized test tutors in town
Growing up, Hedrick’s parents preached education as a path to upward mobility. His mother showed him what that path could look like.
“I watched my mom start and run a business,” Hedrick said. “She did something that nobody in the family had ever done … and it was very inspiring.”
That business focused on pre-employment screening. After graduating from Webb School of Knoxville and earning a business degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Hedrick went to work for his family’s company. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that he picked up tutoring on the side.
“Back in high school, I was just short of perfect on my standardized exams,” he said. “I have always been a great test-taker.”
He explained his approach: While questions may change from test to test, they’re all packaged the same way. If students can learn to decode the packaging, the answers become much more obvious. Hedrick helps students do just that.
In 2010, he officially launched Testing Solutions, offering prep for the ACT, SAT, PSAT, GRE, GMAT and LSAT. Two years later, he launched Collegiate Blueprint Consulting to help students and families plan for college, choose a degree and map out a career. In 2016, he kick-started ACT Authority, an on-demand video platform that packaged test prep and college planning for schools, students and families.
The inspiration behind Guided
Across those three ventures, Hedrick worked with more than 3,000 students. Among them, he noticed a pattern. Most of his clients were from high-net-worth families whose kids were aiming for competitive colleges, often chasing merit-based or academic scholarships.
Meanwhile, students without those resources were largely on their own. According to the American School Counselor Association, the national average is 408 students for every school counselor.
In 2025, Hedrick and a cofounder began building Guided to close that gap. The new platform brings all three of his businesses under one roof, while opening the door to families who couldn’t afford his services before.
Guided aims to guide students to better decision-making
A glimpse at the platform shows more than 40 modules of short-form videos: Twenty-five foundational modules cover career assessments, college search basics and social and emotional support. Another 17 advanced modules walk college-bound students through the Common App, the FAFSA and financial aid. Each module comes with templates to help families apply what they learn.
Hedrick said one of his favorite features is the career exploration tool, which helps students weigh the return on investment of the degree and career path they choose.
“How much can they expect to make starting out? What is the cost of living? And, with those two things combined, how long would it take them to pay off student loans?” he said. “We need to help students better think about these things.”
Hedrick calls this Guided’s Life Simulation Calculator, which shows students how student debt could shape their lifestyle after graduation. Hedrick said it could also help settle some arguments between students and their parents.
“It’s hard to envision how much these factors affect you until you’re in the real world, paying bills and buying groceries,” he added.
Bringing the product to market
Before launch, Hedrick ran a focus group in Ohio with counselors, teachers and administrators representing more than 25,000 users. Nearly every participant who tested Guided said it would help students make more informed decisions.
For now, Hedrick is selling Guided directly to families. But down the road, he wants to offer it to school districts for use by students and counselors at the high school and community college level. He also sees a role for organizations that could buy the platform and provide it to the students they serve.
“The most important thing to me is that everyone has access to this, not just those with the highest economic slice,” Hedrick said.
Explore the 25 free Guided learning modules.
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